Hello Hive!
I wanted to share with you here this first encounter I just had with my neighbor in her small yet productive home garden. This happened 3 days ago, and for me, this was too kind and heartwarming not to share.
I was having a short leisure walk with my friend around our area one afternoon this week when clumps of small round green fruits of the lush Calamansi plant from my neighborhood caught me. I headed near the garden,stopped there for a while, and entertainingly looked at those fruits. The neighbor suddenly went out of her house, and asked me if I wanted some. At first, you know I was like "No, I'm good! I was just entertained by those clumps of green fruits. They are a lot." But, my neighbor really insisted to share some of them, and like "They are really a lot, and we could not consume them all, some even fell and just got rotten."
She took out a plastic bag, and started to harvest some. I helped her in taking off the citrus fruits, while also having fun talking with her, asking some questions about her plants, gardening tips, and the like.
The bag was already half-filled but Ate (I called her so as she was years older than me.) was still picking more. So I was like "Ate, it's already too much.😊", but she was really still adding more. I became I bit shy so I offered to just pay the harvests even just with a small amount, but Ate was insitent with she was not having her harvests for sale.
I thought it was already all. Beside the Calamansi Plant, they had this healthy growing grass which we called here "Lemongrass". Ate uprooted some, handed them to me while saying, "These are good for "Tinola" (soup dishes) especially Chicken." And I became speechless for a few seconds.
The lemongrass really smells good, and this is what I liked about it, the fragrance it has especially when it is added to soup dishes.
Among the units in the place, it was only Ate who had that home garden so far. Her space is not so huge, and our place got somewhat a rocky ground but she managed to have one and grow healthy and productive plants which not only benefited her and her family, but also her neighbors like me who was just in that one fine afternoon walking around.
Never did I thought that that very day in my new place,I would bring home more than just a bacon 😅, I brought home a half-filled bag of Calamansi fruits,stalks of Lemongrass, and more importantly, the kindest experience I just had with a neighbor whom I had just met.
As I was done with the walk, I washed the harvests and processed them then into juice. I boiled the Lemongrass while I was slicing the citrus fruits in halves. Then, mixed the water of the boiled Lemongrass and the juice extracts of Calamansi, and added a small amount of Sugar. I let it cool and rest, and put it inside the refrigerator afterwards.I got a pitcher of refreshing and therapeutic juice for the next days.
My neighbor's garden is so blessed, and I am one grateful lady here for the unexpected blessing I had that day.
It really was a great day! Thank you for reaching it this far. I hope you do have fun. I guess it's all for this post. See you in the next one. Keep safe!